Primal Inklings
by NeoNails
Summary: RR. '"What is that on your back?" Raven's eyes widened almost imperceptibly, and she squared her shoulders. "I don't know what you're talking about, Dick." "The hell you don't."


So… I haven't written _any_ TT fanfiction in… years. But in the last week or so, this is the second oneshot I've written (the first you'll see later, after it's posted on DeviantArt's robin-x-raven club- the website's robin-x-raven . deviantart . com Just remove the spaces.)

Personally, I'm impressed. :D

Anyway, so I dabble a little in art when I'm not addicted to adding as much shit to my ff account as possible (& yet you guys choose to love me for it anyway XD), and I made this little Robin/Raven (well, technically, it would probably be more appropriate to call it Nightwing/Raven, but you guys know it's the same thing) picture, and I decided to use (comic book) Raven's tramp stamp in it. Well, that got me thinking, and to any of you that know me, you know what happens when I start thinking. ;)

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"_When the designs are chosen with care, tattoos have a power and magic all their own. They decorate the body but also enhance the soul."_

- Michelle Delio

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* * *

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"What is that?"

Raven straightened immediately, the spoon she had dropped just moments ago still clutched limply in her hands. She was not normally clumsy, but still dropped the occasional item. If they had been at the Tower, she wouldn't have thought twice about telepathically catching the offending object midflight. Sadly, she was not in the Tower, and she was not in her battle clothes, so it would be extremely inappropriate for an average girl (albeit with violet locks) to catch a spoon with her mind.

But the process of leaning down and picking up the spoon was completely innocent, which was why she felt the need to stare at her friend and leader, Robin (though in the public she was to refer to him as Dick) like he had lost his mind. "A spoon?" she responded, holding up the white plastic utensil and arching a slender brow.

Dick shook his head, and there was a spark of something that looked like a mixture of disbelief and mirth that crossed his pale blue eyes. "Not that," he said, standing up from his seat. He had snagged a little corner table when they'd first walked into the coffee shop, and after she handed him his drink (coffee- black), she walked over to the little station, where she added a small amount of milk to her chamomile tea. Normally, she liked her tea plain, but today was one of those rare days when she wanted a little more sweetness to her drink than usual.

After stirring the milk into the tea, she set the disposable spoon on the table for a moment, so she could collect her tea, purse, and grocery bag before depositing the spoon in the trash. She probably should have handed the grocery bag to Dick when he headed to grab them a table, but she hadn't been thinking and as a result knocked over the spoon with the bag and had to set everything back on the counter in order to throw out the spoon.

It was a process that took all of thirty seconds, but it had managed to grab Dick's eagle-eye attention for some reason.

"What's on your back?" he asked, a slight smirk playing on his features.

Raven did not respond outwardly, other than to square her shoulders slightly and straighten her gaze on her friend. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Dick actually had the audacity to laugh in her face. "The hell you don't," he said, grinning. "I know what I saw- Rae, what is that on your back?"

She rolled her eyes as she set all of her bags on the seat beside her and her tea on the table and slid into her own seat, subtly pulling the hem of her dark blue sweater down, so no possible slivers of skin could be seen.

That was where she screwed up, really. She didn't shop, but on one of the few trips with Starfire, the vivacious redhead had _insisted_ that she buy the particular pair of jeans she was currently wearing. Admittedly, they did seem to look nice on her body- some kind of dark-wash material, and boot cut to make her "already long legs _mile-long!_" (according to the tag, anyway)- the only reason she had even balked at the idea of buying the jeans in the first place was that they were, well, low. Not ridiculously low, but hitting a little below her hipbones, which was enough for her to feel uncomfortable.

She was not used to constantly adjusting her clothes, because almost 90 percent of her time was spent in her uniform, which was made of a durable material that didn't snag or bunch, and was breathable enough that she was never extremely hot or cold. She never wore her civilian clothes, so she would occasionally forget to pull her shirt down or tug up her jeans when she leaned down.

It was a habit that, clearly, she really needed to pick up.

"There is nothing on my back," she said with an almost undetectable huffiness. "So stop staring at my ass, Dick. It's not appropriate coworker behavior."

She thought that embarrassing him would make him drop the subject, but evidently she was horribly wrong. "I was not staring at your ass, Rachel," he said, still smiling to himself. "I like your legs better."

Raven sat bolt straight, shooting him daggers as she felt the heat rush to her face. She was going to kill him the second they got away from all the witnesses.

"However," he continued, as though he didn't notice the dangerous look in her eyes or the vibrant blush that was spreading quickly towards her hairline, "I'm more interested with that tattoo on your back than anything else."

At the moment, she really did want to kill him, or at very least smack that knowing smirk off his face. But she knew when she was beat, so she glanced over her shoulder, making sure no one saw this humiliating little scene.

Instinctively, he knew just from the almost imperceptible change in her expression that he won, so he sat back in his seat, happy to be presented with another little nuance of Raven's many-faceted character. She spent so much time keeping almost all of herself carefully locked away, he liked to make it his personal mission on the rare days they had off to peel back the layers of her cold exterior and see what lay beneath.

Today, it appeared that this little secret was going to be revealed in the literal sense.

"I got it two years ago," she said, slowly and carefully rolling up the hem of her sweater to about to the small of her back so he could see the whole thing. "The day after my sixteenth birthday."

The importance of that date was not lost on him. She knew it wouldn't.

"It's a…" he had to swallow thickly, because there was something about that tattoo- the location, the design, _something_- that made his breath catch in his throat and every muscle in his body want to trace the outline.

"Raven."

It was the black bird, one that lived forever in her Nevermore, midflight, tail starting in the middle of her back, sharp wings outstretched and head pointing down, the tip of the beak almost touching where the top of her jeans began.

She glanced over her shoulder to get a glimpse at his face, and was startled by the strong emotion in his gaze. She couldn't read the emotion- it was something foreign to her, primal, that felt familiar all the same.

She slowly lowered her sweater, but didn't miss how his eyes were still glued to that same spot. "I figured it was appropriate. It's always been a part of me, so I decided to make it permanent by imbedding it into my skin."

She sat back down in her seat and picked up her tea, inexplicably thirsty at the moment. She blamed it on the way Dick was still staring at her.

"Any other tattoos I should know about?" he said, and she was having trouble looking away from his eyes, which were quickly turning from their usual icy color to more of a deep azure. His voice was deeper when he asked that question, she knew it, and there was something about the change in color and sound and the expression on his face that she suddenly realized with an onset of clarity what that emotion was that written all over him.

"That would be my only tattoo," she said, drinking the tea. She really was impossibly thirsty at the moment. The chamomile was going to be gone in two more minutes if he kept looking at her like that. "Not that I would show you if there were any others."

His eyes actually managed to get darker. She didn't even know _how_, but they did. And the pit of her stomach clenched in response.

What the hell was going on?

He managed to chuckle, but it was so much lower and throatier than his normal laugh that she felt like the floor had been pulled out from under her, and her whole body tightened in response, adrenaline surging as something just as equally primal as his gaze coursed through her veins.

"We'll see about that," he said, voice deep and gravelly, and leaned back, heated gaze almost immediately disappearing as he took a hearty drink from his coffee.

She did the same with her tea, suddenly very flushed and very, very breathless. This was new. She was not used to this kind of reaction from her fearless leader, and she certainly wasn't used the emotions he was evoking from her. She was going to spend a lot of time tonight and tomorrow meditating.

She had finally figured out what was exactly in Dick's gaze.

_Hunger_.

And he wanted _her_.

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Not _intentionally_ hot, but I think it wound up that way in the end. ;D And I think I also unintentionally wound up making this into a series. Probably not more than two or three more oneshots (because they'll all be 'independent' of one another, but in the same essential story arc).

Unless, do you want to me to put them all in the same fic (i.e., this one) or separate fics? It's really up to you guys. For the most part, I rarely ever care either way. XD

Hope you liked it!!!


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